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I'm depressed, my system hurts my ears.Please help

I've been enjoying my stereo for quite some time now, but my latest component addition is hurting my ears. My system is as follows:

Music Hall CD25 CD player
McIntosh MC2105 amp (30 year old amp)
Joseph Audio RM22si signatures
Signal Cable Analog 2 interconnects
Kimber 4TC biwired speaker cable
Denon AVR1700 HT receiver as preamp

With the Denon the system sounded pretty good, but it was the obvious weak link, and was actually performing its own unnecessary A to D to A conversion). I swapped the Denon for a Creek OBH12 passive. I added the Creek because in my careful, volume leveled comparisons of the Denon compared to no pre at all, no pre was much cleaner and more natural (I an use no pre because amp has volume knobs).

So I put in the Creek passive to keep that clarity along with switching and an easy volume control, but now I can't sit in the sweet spot of my speakers and listen, because my ears start to hurt at volume levels that used to be just fine. Is this clipping due to an impedance matching problem? Is this just me receiving the full spectrum of the sound and my ears can't handle it? I remember having a similar problem with a very nice car stereo I installed, it sounded very good but always hurt my ears compared to my worse sounding older car stereo.

I almost wish I had never started down the audiophile path, this is depressing. It's tough to do swapping style comparisons because once my ears start hurting, any music will make them hurt until they have a chance to recover. Any suggestions would be most appreciated.
matt8268
marakanetz's avatar
marakanetz
5,473 posts
 
kimber is too fast for fast josephs.
the suggestion for MIT is right on.
you might also try AQ Midnight.
wire creek to mac with MIT-s as well.

your amp/passive pre- combination is near-perfect with high input sencitivity, low feedback and high input impedance of your poweramp.
also you might not have enough power to swing RM22 and I would suggest to get another same Mac(plenty on ebay to fight for) to use them as monos.
platsolos
90 posts
 
I had issues with a bright system in the past and banged my head on what it was.......turns out my kimber 8tc and 4tc biwire was the culprit. Went to synergistic research alph x series biwire and WOW! It is amazing. And they only cost about $160 used!
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ferdjaboko
13 posts
 
I had similar problems in my system using Kimber (PBJ & Hero) and MIT (T2) IC's.

After much investigating on this site, I purchased used Harmoninc Technology TruthLink IC's here at Audiogon.

And I am very happy with the results.
matt8268 OP
92 posts
 
Thanks for all the suggestions. One thing I should reiterate is that the sound is not necessarily bad, but that it literally hurts my ears. Like it is too loud (resonating) at certain frequencies, probably midrange. Midrange resonations I believe are super unpleasant because human ears use these frequencies to speak to each other, so they're the most sensitive.

It's so hard to believe that this is because my system is now so transparent that I can't handle it, and that cables alone could fix the problem. I'm willing to try, just don't know an easy way to try out lots of cables. I may also experiment with the room treatments suggested.

Thanks for your suggestions,
Matt.
subaruguru
1,375 posts
 
Really sounds like additive room reflections in the upper midrange. Very carefully check out first reflection absorption (pillows, carpeting, stuffed furniture). Use a good test disc with 1/3 octave warbles and notice the change in loudness as you move your head back and forth and forward/backward. You'll be surprised at how much the upper mid (500-1200 Hz) stuff will change. Find the sweet spot that doesn't hurt and isn't too far off the vertical axis of your drivers. Hope this helps.
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